India’s Acid Attack Problem

Acids often used in attacks are easily available. Shown, a bottle of hydrochloric acid.

India’s Supreme Court has criticized the government for not being serious about preventing acid attacks, setting a July 16 deadline for a framework to be put in place to regulate over-the-counter sales of acids often used in such attacks.

These acids are easily available. Wednesday, India Real Time purchased a liter of hydrochloric acid – branded “Power” – from a small general store in a south Delhi neighborhood selling other goods like potato chips and cookies. The clear bottle carries a picture of a lion, beneath which it says “for industrial use” and “caution.” It cost 20 rupees ($0.33). Hydrochloric acid can burn through flesh.

U.K.-based Acid Survivors Trust International says about 1,500 acid attacks are reported worldwide every year. There are no official figures for India, but New Delhi-based group Stop Acid Attacks says around three cases are reported nationwide each week. Most of the victims are women and attacks are often carried out by family members or other known people. Sometimes they are deadly.

Laxmi

Laxmi was left badly scarred on her face, arms and chest after she was attacked with acid in 2005. Shown, Laxmi two years before she was attacked.

“People are dying, but you are not worried about it. Think of people who are losing their lives every day. Girls are being attacked every day in different parts of the country,” the Supreme Court said Tuesday after hearing a plea by an acid attack survivor.

“Seriousness is not seen on the part of government in handling the issue,” it said.

The Supreme Court had asked the government to formulate a policy to curb the sale of acid in February, but no action has been taken. Tuesday, the court gave the government a week to act on the matter. If it doesn’t, the Supreme Court said it will make its own order, though it didn’t say how it would be implemented.

Campaigners believe regulating the sale of hydrochloric, sulfuric, nitric and other acid will bring down the number of attacks. “Once it goes out of the market a lot of the problems will be solved,” said Suneet Shukla, coordinator at Stop Acid Attacks.

“Acid should not be sold without an ID card and there should be records maintained whenever you’re selling acid. The government could also stop its sale for individual users. It could only be sold for industrial and laboratory purposes,” he said.

Atish Patel

Laxmi, July 9 ,2013.

The Supreme Court had Tuesday been hearing a plea by a woman named Laxmi who is seeking changes to the law on acid attacks and sales. Laxmi, who only goes by one name, was left badly scarred on her face, arms and chest after she was attacked with acid in 2005 near New Delhi’s upscale Khan Market.

In April, India’s Parliament approved a bill that strengthened laws on assaults against women. The move came in the wake of the gang rape and subsequent death of a 23-year-old student on a bus in New Delhi. Acid attacks were included in the bill. They were made a criminal offense with a minimum 10-year prison term, but a proposal for perpetrators to compensate victims, including coverage of medical expenses, was dropped.

Laxmi was only 15 when she was attacked in broad daylight by a man and a woman on a motorcycle. The male attacker, who Laxmi refused to marry, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2009. The woman was given a seven-year jail term.

Since the assault, Laxmi has spent around one million rupees ($16,638) on plastic surgery, most of it paid by her father’s former employer. Her father was a cook for a New Delhi family. He died last year.

“I also want the government to help us with rehabilitation. Treatment costs a lot. The government should help us with this and look after our medical expenses. They should also provide us with government jobs as its very difficult for us to find jobs,” she told India Real Time.

Acid attacks can be deadly. In May, a woman in Mumbai was assaulted by an unknown man at a train station while with her father. The woman, who had gone to the city to start a job as a nurse, died of her injuries around a month later.

India’s neighbor, Bangladesh, has taken greater steps to clamp down on acid attacks. There, acid throwers face the death penalty and the sale of acid is strictly controlled, which has led to a drop in assaults in recent years.

Atish Patel is a multimedia journalist based in Delhi. You can follow him on Twitter @atishpatel.

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